They're here!

[Rue]

Woohoo! The B. albopilosum was out and about for a nano-second...and it ate a 2nd cricket! Then it scurried back down it's mini-burrow. It's building a teeny-tiny underground condo complex from what I can tell.

No one's moulted, but they have all grown.

I think I'm going to move the G. pulchra and the L. violaceopes to their 'cubes. They're too big to get out of the ventilation holes now. The G. pulchra doesn't like the substrate in the Rubbermaid container (its been on the side since I got it), so I'll keep the substrate in the cube drier and give it a dish of water. The L. violceopes needs a stick or bark now, and there's no room in the Rubbermaid to put one in (that will be big enough).

I'll leave the other two in the Rubbermaid for the time being.

 

[Hobo]

They only grow when they molt, unless you mean the girth of their abdomen.
I'd hold off rehousing them if they look like they can squeeze their carapace through the ventilation holes. They'll manage to squeeze through, or worse, get stuck halfway.

I've read some threads of slings doing just that, one on a lid, and one in that little hole at the bottom of a ceramic flower pot. I believe one or both ended up dying. I'll see if I can dig up those threads for you.

EDIT:

Found the flower pot hole one.
And here's the one stuck in a ventilation hole.

So yeah, no need to risk escapes, or deaths. Wait until they grow(molt) if you think they might be able to squeeze through.

 

[Rue]

Eee! Thanks! Maybe I should hold off until the first moult...

Yes...their abdomens are huge (relative to what they were). I'm feeding 2X a week.

 

[Rue]

Updates aren't the most exciting T activity are they?

No changes! Everyone is eating 2X a week. They're all quite fat. No one has moulted.

The most exciting thing happened yesterday evening. I was short one cricket (one died) so I caught an otitid (we're on an acerage, I wasn't worried about pesticides this early in the season, nor particularily concerned about parasites) for the B. albopilosum and put it in the container.

It was the first time it came out of it's condominium complex all week - but it caught the fly, dragged it back to it's burrow and munched on it. I'm happy to see it active and looking good!

Now if only someone would hurry up and moult...I'd feel more confident about rearing them...

 

[Jerome.h]

congrats bro!!
i have my spiderlings a month ago too.
they r good eater, just wondering when will hey moult? haha
black patch at the abdomen for quite awhile aready!
btw what do you feed your spiderling this size?
i feed it meal worms, they seem to llike them. crickets here are too big for them.
there's no way i can get mini crickets here.
occasionally i feed them crickets leg, but missed the ACTION. so i just feed mealworms,
any recomendation for food?

 

[Najakeeper]

Updates aren't the most exciting T activity are they?

No changes! Everyone is eating 2X a week. They're all quite fat. No one has moulted.

The most exciting thing happened yesterday evening. I was short one cricket (one died) so I caught an otitid (we're on an acerage, I wasn't worried about pesticides this early in the season, nor particularily concerned about parasites) for the B. albopilosum and put it in the container.

It was the first time it came out of it's condominium complex all week - but it caught the fly, dragged it back to it's burrow and munched on it. I'm happy to see it active and looking good!

Now if only someone would hurry up and moult...I'd feel more confident about rearing them...

Friendly advice after feeding a wild caught cricket to a beautiful Pamphobeteus juvi and watching him suffer with a nematode infection, do not use wild caught insects as prey items. Never again for me...

 

[Rue]

Normally I'd feed store-bought pinheads...these guys haven't had any trouble with their size. Later on I'll mix it up a bit with mealworms and waxworms.

I wonder if wild crickets are more prone to nematode infections than flies would be?

I also wonder how the parasite load of wild insects varies regionally?

But yes...I wouldn't recommend wild-caught food either. I'm being (hopefully) careful when I do it myself. So do what I say, not what I do...

 

[Najakeeper]

Really it is very painful to see the T's mouth foam up with worms. And I only fed her just one WC prey item. Jackpot...

I believe wild animals have some resistance to nematodes as they live with them out there, on the other hand our CB babies have been raised in clean environments with no parasites so their immune systems can not deal with them. Also, parasites can infect multiple specimens when they get into your collection via cross contamination and devastate entire collections. (This has happened!)

So I don't even trust store bought feeders when it comes to my babies. I have two roach colonies that feeds everyone.